Tuesday, 26 July 2011

My daughter's academy of theatre arts came to the end of its first year last week, with awards and an end of year show. It was a great success, as shown in this report in tonight's Lancashire Evening Telegraph.

My first collection of short stories, most of which were previously professionally published in magazines and anthologies here and in the United States, was set to be brought out by Midnight House. This project is now quite a few years old and, unable to contact John Pelan, the owner of Midnight House, and with its website down for the best part of a year now, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the book is not going to be brought out.

I had already turned down one alternative offer to publish this collection several years ago by Ex-Occidente. Since then, due to the delays from Midnight House, Johnny Mains, owner of Noose and Gibbet Press, has repeatedly urged me to let him publish it instead. Last night, recognising that my original arrangement with Midnight House appears to have died, I agreed. My collection will be published by Noose and Gibbet in the Spring/Summer of next year in hardback.

I am now going back to look over the stories which were originally to be in this collection and I will probably make a few alterations to the line up, probably substituting some newer ones.

I would like to thank Johnny for his kind offer and I look forward to working with him on this project, which I am confident at last will really happen.

Friday, 22 July 2011

Nearly got caught out last night. I'd forgotten or missed seeing his earlier email, but David Howe, chairman of the BFS, reminded me that he needed all the material for the next Prism by the end of this month. I thought I had at least another week or so longer than that.

Still, everything seems to be in hand and this shouldn't be a problem.

I wrote back to David to let him know that this will probably be my last Prism as editor as, after two years, I wish to stand down, at least when someone else can be found to take my place, which shouldn't take long. As any regular readers of this blog will know I wasn't happy at combining Prism in with Dark Horizons and New Horizons to form the new BFS Journal. I enjoyed and found doing the layout for Prism extremely satisfying and have missed, ever since the new Journal started, that this creative side of the magazine is no longer in my hands. It has taken a lot of the interest and enjoyment in producing it away from me. The changes may have meant a lot less work, but I'm now little more than a middle man collecting together the regular features and all the reviews sent in by the review editors.

Don't get me wrong. The new BFS Journal has proven to be a magnificent publication and certainly does the society proud. But, from my position as Prism's editor, I feel my job has shrunk to insignificance, certainly compared to what it was, when I controlled the look of the publication and its printing.

Anyway, two years is perhaps a fair innings for the job, and I'm sure someone else will be only too glad to take it on. And good luck to them. I'm sure, whoever it is, will do a fine job.

For me it's time to concentrate on other things, especially writing. And maybe even a review or two.

I was surprised to see that the latest issue of Locus has a review of this two-volume set. Not being a subscriber, though, I haven't yet seen what the review has to say about it.

That the books have finally been reviewed, though, makes it look like they will finally be published. I certainly hope so, as the one chosen by John Pelan for 1970 is my first ever published story, The Lurkers in the Abyss from the Eleventh Pan Book of Horror.